An interesting remark from a recent interview with former Throwing Muse Kristin Hersh: “The intensity of good music is too much to bear. And bad music is so offensive that that’s also too much to bear.”
I sort of half get that. I certainly know what it’s like to encounter a piece of music, or a film or a painting or whatever, that overwhelms with its emotional intensity, and it’s too distracting and you’re not in the mood and you just want to hide. (Oddly, I’ve never found that with a book: I’ve been so utterly gripped by a novel that I’ve stayed on the bus to the terminus, even though reading on buses makes me nauseous, but I’ve never had to put a book to one side because it overwhelms me. Has anyone?)
Where I part company with Ms Hersh is over the matter of bad music. I don’t mind a lot of bad music, in fact I often like it, whether it’s bad because it’s a bit cheesy (like this) or simply incompetent (like that). What I can’t bear is music that’s simply bearable and polite and does its job and doesn’t charge emotional overtime. And I won’t post a link to it, because it encompasses about 95% of the music that surrounds us.
I sort of half get that. I certainly know what it’s like to encounter a piece of music, or a film or a painting or whatever, that overwhelms with its emotional intensity, and it’s too distracting and you’re not in the mood and you just want to hide. (Oddly, I’ve never found that with a book: I’ve been so utterly gripped by a novel that I’ve stayed on the bus to the terminus, even though reading on buses makes me nauseous, but I’ve never had to put a book to one side because it overwhelms me. Has anyone?)
Where I part company with Ms Hersh is over the matter of bad music. I don’t mind a lot of bad music, in fact I often like it, whether it’s bad because it’s a bit cheesy (like this) or simply incompetent (like that). What I can’t bear is music that’s simply bearable and polite and does its job and doesn’t charge emotional overtime. And I won’t post a link to it, because it encompasses about 95% of the music that surrounds us.
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